‘I completely dismissed her’: David Crosby on the night that changed his mind about Lady Gaga

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David Crosby admits that “she’s so show business.” But something happened when the Byrds and CSN legend saw Lady Gaga at this year’s MusiCares event. Crosby says he came away with a completely different opinion.

Gaga wouldn’t have seemed like a breakout-star-in-the-making that night, when you consider who else was on the bill as Carole King was feted that night — including Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Sara Bareilles, Miranda Lambert and Alicia Keys. James Taylor was also there.

“I completely dismissed her,” Crosby tells the Hudson Union Society. “I was like, ‘Oh, Christ, another flag waver. This is pure surface, no substance’ — which is traditional now in the United States.”

Then Lady Gaga took the stage, in all white: “And I watched her sing this song,” says Crosby, who released a well-received new solo album before returning to the road with Crosby Stills and Nash. “We were honoring Carole King, and she was singing ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ — the most popular Carole King song of all time. And she was singing it to Carole. And, man, that girl can actually play and sing and write. She’s real — though she must be as weird as a snake’s suspenders.”

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